Rate My Professor Christof Pforr

Professor Christof Pforr is Professor of Tourism in the School of Management and Marketing, Faculty of Business and Law at Curtin University. He holds a PhD in Political Science from the University of Bonn, Germany. With more than 20 years of teaching and research experience at university level across four Australian universities, Professor Pforr has held significant leadership roles in research, teaching, and learning. His academic background spans tourism management, geography, political science, and history, leading to inter- and multidisciplinary research approaches. Currently, he serves as Discipline Leader (Tourism, Hospitality and Events) and Course Coordinator for Tourism and Hospitality in the School of Management and Marketing.

Professor Pforr's research concentrates on four interconnected areas: sustainability, tourism public policy, destination governance, and special interest tourism. His projects include assessing tourism potentials in Western Australia's Fitzroy Valley under National Park or UNESCO World Heritage scenarios, analyzing Airbnb demand patterns and impacts in Australia and Germany, exploring the regenerative potential of community-based ecotourism in Malaysia's Niah National Park, and examining health policies and medical tourism in Australia, Germany, Italy, and Poland. He has co-edited books such as Food, Wine and China: A Tourism Perspective (2017) and The Practice of Sustainable Tourism: Resolving the Paradox (2015). Key publications include Crisis Management in Tourism: Preparing for Recovery (2008, with P.J. Hosie), Tourism Policy in the Making: An Australian Network Study (2006), Wellness Tourism: A Destination Perspective (2013, with C. Voigt), The Governance of Coastal Tourism (2010, with A. Wesley), and Factors Influencing Indigenous Engagement in Tourism Development (2019, with C. Fletcher and M. Brueckner). Recent works encompass Tourism Policy-Making in the Context of Contested Wicked Problems (2024) and Understanding and Managing the Impact of Airbnb (2021). Professor Pforr has received the 2005 Curtin Business School New Researcher of the Year Award and the 2004 Dissertation Award of the German Association for Australian Studies.